Sergei Naryshkin (Сергей Евгеньевич Нарышкин) was born on Oct. 27, 1954, in Leningrad. Naryshkin grew up on Fontanka, one of the city's most coveted addresses, where he shared a small apartment with his parents, grandmother and brother. Acquaintances hint that his father was in the Communist Party elite (story).

Education: Radio-mechanical engineering, Leningrad Mechanical Institute, 1978. Economics, Petersburg International Management Institute, 1997.

1978: Named first secretary of the Leningrad Mechanical Institute's Komsomol, the Communist Party's youth wing

1978-1982: Naryshkin's official biography is blank, but friends say he was sent to Moscow to study, hinting at KGB recruitment (story)

1982: Appointed deputy rector of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute

1988-1992: Soviet embassy in Brussels. Naryshkin's official title was "expert to the state science and technological committee," but according to the Kommersant newspaper, he was a KGB officer using the post as a cover (story).

1992-1995: Head of the foreign economic relations sub-department of the economics and finance committee in the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office. There he fostered close ties with Vladimir Putin, head of the city's committee on external relations, and with those who would become Putin's key ministers and advisers. One of them was future Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who headed the economics and finance committee from 1993 to 1996.

1995-1997: Head of Promstroibank's foreign investments department. Promstroibank was owned at the time by Vladimir Kogan, once known as Putin's personal banker. The future president kept his savings in Promstroibank and held bank shares. The bank attracted major clients as multinational firms quickly learned that connections were key to winning privileged contracts in a city slow to adapt to the country's new capitalist spirit.

January 1997: Head of the Leningrad region's investment department

1998-2004: Head of the Leningrad region's committee for external economic and international relations. During his time in the Leningrad region administration (1997-2004), Naryshkin oversaw enormous investments in the region, bringing in Philip Morris, Caterpillar and Ford, which all built factories in the area. Ford, among others, was one of Promstroibank's main clients.

March-September 2004: Deputy Cabinet chief of staff

July 2004: Joined Rosneft's board of directors

September 2004: Named Cabinet chief of staff, replacing Dmitry Kozak and giving Naryshkin the rank of Cabinet minister

2005-2009: Chairman of state-owned Channel One television

2005-2009: Member of Rosneft's board of directors

2006-2009: Head of the All-Russia Swimming Federation (Naryshkin is a keen swimmer)

2007-2008: Deputy prime minister (story). His appointment was seen as a move to strengthen Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's position in the Cabinet at the expense of liberal ministers like Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref. Some suspected that Naryshkin was placed inside the White House staff to keep an eye on Fradkov. Charged initially with overseeing foreign trade and CIS relations, Naryshkin ended up overseeing everything from the country's 556 billion ruble ($22.3 billion) investment program in Siberia and the Far East to the construction of the East Siberian-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. Naryshkin also chaired a series of meetings aimed at seeking compromise over competing ministries' ideas of what should be included in a long-awaited bill defining the country's "strategic industries," where foreign investment will be limited. Despite his low profile and quiet manner, Naryshkin was once tipped as a possible successor to President Putin.

May 2008-present: Kremlin chief of staff

2008: Elected chairman of the board of Sovcomflot, the state-owned shipping company

2009: Named chairman of the presidential commission “for counteracting attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia’s interests” (story)

Naryshkin is again being floated as a possible presidential candidate, this time for 2012 elections (story).

He is married and has two children.